Exploring High School Students’ Artistic Value Judgments and Creative Perceptions in AI-Generated Image Art Classes: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

This qualitative study explores students’ artistic value judgments and creative perceptions in art classes using AI-generated images. At a public high school in South Korea, 433 third-year students (2024–2026) took a five-session Midjourney class; responses were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019), informed by Goodman’s (1978) functionalism and Dewey’s (1934) theory of experience. Intention/thought was the criterion cited most for judging art, while beauty was cited least, consistently across three years, suggesting students conceived art as a functional, symbolic condition rather than an aesthetic property. A conditionally reserved stance also emerged as students explored when AI images could qualify as art. Despite accepting AI as a tool, most students distinguished this from the artistic status of its outputs, and a majority assigned copyright to the user with intention. By treating intention as a condition for symbolic functioning rather than a mental state, students illuminate a space Goodman left unresolved between intentionalism and exemplification. AI-era art education should move beyond tool use toward mediating students’ reasoning about art.